


Deep Roots Are Not Reached by the Frost

by vellichorian



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Elemental tropes, Kai-centric, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-27 12:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21118859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vellichorian/pseuds/vellichorian
Summary: Kai and Zane explore the ancient ruins of a frozen tundra together. Things do not go as planned.





	Deep Roots Are Not Reached by the Frost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zombiesri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zombiesri/gifts).

> this is a birthday gift for my friend whom i love very much. happy birthday sri <3
> 
> title from lord of the rings!

“It’s so cold!” Jay said, seemingly surprised, as he surveyed the snowy terrain before him. The six ninjas glanced at each other and then all took a few steps into the winter wonderland they had landed in.

“Yeah, duh!” said Kai, rolling his eyes. Jay sputtered indignantly and begin to bluster up a response. Nya shot Kai a glare, and he backed down, redirecting the conversation out of the hole he had dug it into and swallowing his frankly irresistible urge to make fun of Jay for being dumb. “How cold d’ya think it is anyway?” he asked vaguely, addressing the whole group with a slight shiver. 

“I assess the temperature to be around thirty degrees Fahrenheit," Zane said, "and it is possible that it may begin to decrease while we are here. Everyone should be sure to preserve as much body heat as possible—especially you, Kai.” 

“Huh? Why me!?” Kai blustered, despite feeling that the cool air was seeping into his bones more and more by the second. The offended front he put on was somewhat ruined by the sudden chill that seemed to run straight up his spine, shaking his whole body momentarily. 

“‘Cause you’re a fire elemental, dude,” Cole said, laughing just a little. “Fire and ice don’t exactly go together.”

“I disagree!” Kai said, both indignantly and a little too quickly, with a look at Zane that everyone missed.

“Cole has correctly interpreted my meaning,” Zane said, barrelling forward. Kai’s cheeks lit up a bright, burning red, and he coughed lightly but refrained from saying anything else, _ before I embarrass myself even more, _ he thought. 

“We need to split up!” Lloyd exclaimed, snapping into leader mode. “Me and Nya will head for the village and talk to the locals. Jay and Cole, you guys scope out the location of the last attack. And Zane and Kai, you guys can investigate the ruins!” 

_ Just my luck, _ Kai thought, glancing sideways at Zane. if he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought that Lloyd did that to him on purpose. But Lloyd is sweet, and somewhat oblivious, and none of the team, even the most _ fiery, _ can manage to hold a grudge against him. 

“Hop to it, guys!” Nya exclaimed over her shoulder, pulling Lloyd down the path towards the village excitedly. 

“Let’s get going, Jay,” Cole said. 

“I’m not ready yet!”

“C’mon, man, hurry _ up _—”

“Come, Kai!” Zane said merrily, flashing a wide grin as Cole and Jay bickered in the background. “Let us commence our investigation!” He had already started up the snowmobile and was waiting expectantly in the driver’s seat for Kai to join him. 

“Alright, alright,” Kai said brusquely, forcing the blush off of his face through pure willpower and hopping into the passenger seat. “The ruins are pretty far away, huh? We better get a move on.” Seated firmly as Zane took off, he occupied his hands and head with various small, fussy tasks: checking his seat belt once, twice; adjusting the tie on his tunic, mussing up his hair and then flattening it again; rinse and repeat. 

“Nervous?”

Kai about startled out of his seat. “H-Huh?!” he choked out, and then literally choked, for in his alarm he had yanked his seat belt so tightly it nearly strangled him. 

Concern overtook Zane’s face immediately and he pulled the snowmobile to a screeching halt, powdery snow flying up from the futilely spinning wheels. “Kai! Kai, are you alright?”

“Fine, I’m fine!” Kai said, coughing and spluttering, batting Zane’s out-stretched hands away from him, visibly embarrassed. “Whaddya mean, ‘nervous?’” 

“Pardon me, perhaps I should say anxious?”

Kai gave him a blank look, and Zane coughed. “What I mean is: are you _ worried _ about the mission? If that’s the case, allow me to reassure you: there is nothing to be worried about. The ruins are quite dormant now that all of the frost creatures are running rampant about the village instead of sealed away underground.”

“I’m not nervous _ or _anxious about that!” Kai scoffed. “Or worried, either,” he added as an afterthought. 

“Apologies,” Zane said after a moment’s silence, seeming much subdued. 

Kai softened immediately, feeling very guilty. Zane had only been trying to help, after all “Sorry. Let’s keep going, okay?” 

“Of course,” Zane said, ever-so-gently, and eased the snowmobile back onto the path he had so readily abandoned. 

They drove along in tense silence for some time. Kai sat stewing miserably.

_ Kai, you idiot, what’s wrong with you? You don’t need to be rude to the guy just because you—because you— _

Kai huffed and crossed his arms. Because he what, exactly? Why did his face burn and his heart beat faster when Zane was around? 

_ Beats me, _ Kai thought stubbornly. 

“We’ve arrived!” Zane announced, providing Kai a welcome distraction from the uncomfortable conversation happening in his own head. Zane eased the snowmobile to a much calmer stop and hopped out. “Welcome to the Ruins of Nix!” 

Stretched out across the sprawling tundra was what seemed like miles of partially crumbling buildings, all seemingly constructed from solid ice and coated in a thick layer of snow. 

Kai grinned. “Awesome!”

Zane returned the smile just as excitedly. “Yes, isn’t it? These structures are thought to be thousands of years old, and yet they’re still standing.”

“Alright, let’s do this,” Kai said. 

They spent the next hour beginning to explore the expanses of the ruins, Zane taking down notes and Kai making comments every time he saw something cool. 

“Whoa, look at this! Zane! Zane?” Kai turned without ceasing his movement and saw Zane following him a few paces behind, sweeping the landscape with his eyes and frowning intensely. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Well… these attacks began only a few weeks ago, meaning the creatures must’ve broken free from the ruins around that time. But… all of this wreckage shows no signs of being recent. It looks as if these buildings have been sitting exactly like this for years.”

“So…”

“So where did they come from? I don’t understand.”

“Well—”

“All signs point to this being the location of their emergence!”

“Uh, I think—”

“It simply doesn’t make any sense!”

“Zane!”

Zane stopped walking sheepishly and turned to where Kai had stopped walking several moments earlier. Kai pointed, Zane followed the gesture with his eyes, and there it was—a massive, icy staircase, descending deep into the ground. 

Zane was quiet for a long moment, staring at the dark void that the stairs dropped off into. “Ah,” he said at last. 

Kai laughed. “Let’s try this again!”

Together, they descended the staircase. All light from the surface quickly disappeared when they reached the bottom and they found themselves flailing around blindly until Zane remembered the flashlight he had brought and fumbled it on, casting low light on the cavern around them. 

“Geez, it’s way colder down here,” Kai said, wrapping his arms around himself. His breath appeared in frosty clouds each time he exhaled. 

Zane frowned. “Yes, we should try to conclude our investigation quickly. I do not believe it’s safe for you to be in such low temperatures for an extended period of time.”

Kai averted his eyes and mumbled something about not needing to worry about him, then cleared his throat. “How big do you think this place is, anyway?”

Zane cast the dim beam of his flashlight around in every direction, but it was impossible to tell. The cave seemed to go on forever. They looked at each other, shrugged, and began walking.

“So we’re searching for any information on these creatures, what awakened them, and how to put them back to sleep.”

Kai nodded. He knew this, of course—he had been briefed on the mission just like the rest of the team—but Zane always liked to make sure everyone was on board, and Kai just liked listening to Zane talk. 

They walked together in silence for a while, Zane continuing to shine the flashlight around the darkness and Kai getting colder by the minute. Shivering, he tugged the ties of his tunic tighter and hoped that they would find what they were looking for soon. 

As if someone had read his mind, Zane’s flashlight beam suddenly landed on something. They both cried out and rushed forward. It seemed to be a shrine of some kind, or perhaps an altar, shaped like a wide half-circle and covered in carved runes, and upon closer inspection, it appeared to be made of solid ice, just like everything else in the ruins. 

“Incredible,” Zane breathed, walking the length of the shrine to peer at the symbols. “If only I knew what these runes meant…” He trailed off, reaching down to brush some debris off of the central carving. 

The moment his hand touched the surface of the rune, the entire cavern began to shake violently. Both ninjas lost their balance and fell to the floor.

“Kai!”

“Zane!” 

With a horrible rumbling, crashing sound, the wide expanse of the cave from whence they had come was blocked entirely by a complete collapse of one section of the cave ceiling. As the shaking subsided and Kai and Zane regained their balance, they sought eye contact with each other, fearing to confirm the worst: they were trapped. 

Kai’s teeth began chattering. It suddenly felt as if the temperature had dropped another ten degrees. “I think I need to sit down,” Kai said faintly, and he slowly slid down the cave wall until he was seated, hugging himself in a weak attempt to preserve his body heat. 

“Kai! Oh, no.” Zane rushed over to him and crouched down to be eye-to-eye with him. “I am going to figure out an alternative method of escape. Stay right here, Kai. I will figure this out.” Kai made as if he was going to stand, but Zane cried out in alarm. “Do not waste your strength! Focus on staying warm.” Kai began to protest, but Zane silenced him with a look. “Please.” Kai sighed but nodded and attempted to make himself comfortable. As much as he hated to admit it, the idea of moving sounded awful at the moment. 

Kai watched Zane move about the small space frantically, scaling the walls and shining his flashlight on every possible surface. The shrine, however, he gave a wide berth. After twenty odd minutes of this, Zane dropped to the floor beside Kai, defeated. 

“There’s simply no other exit, Kai. I… I do not know what to do.”

Kai was shocked to see tears in Zane’s eyes before the other ninja covered his face with his hands, looking miserable. 

“Dude, it’s… it’s gonna… gonna be okay,” Kai said with much difficulty, finding it more difficult to speak for some reason, his tongue like a weight in his mouth. “We’ll wait… wait for the others.”

Zane looked up at him, distressed. “Kai… I do not know how long it will take the others to realize something is wrong, let alone to find us, and I don’t know what might happen if you stay down here for much longer.”

Kai blinked slowly. He was having trouble processing things, but he understood the danger of the situation. “Don’t… worry,” he managed, cracking a weak smile, but Zane only looked more upset.

“This is my fault!” he exclaimed. “I should never have touched something that appeared magical without first understanding its purpose!”

“Zane…” Kai began, but found it too difficult to continue, so he settled for shaking his head, hoping that Zane would understand the sentiment: _ not your fault. _

Zane composed himself slightly. “You’re right. My self-flagellation is not going to aid you in any way right now. He slid as close to Kai as possible and huddled down to him. “My body doesn’t run very warm, but it is also incapable of getting colder. We must huddle to keep you as warm as possible until the others arrive.”

Under normal circumstances, this sort of thing would’ve gotten Kai very flustered, but as it was, he was having trouble even keeping his eyes open. He felt irresistibly sleepy, for some reason. 

Noticing Kai’s eyes drifting shut, Zane’s own eyes widened in alarm. “Kai!” he said, shaking the other ninja’s arm lightly. Kai’s eyes fluttered open again. “You must stay awake, Kai. I know it is difficult, but you must try.”

Kai nodded and attempted to keep his eyes wide, but his eyelids grew so heavy that he couldn’t manage it. Again, Zane roused him, and again, and again, all the while holding him tightly and softly repeating variants of “everything will be alright” into Kai’s ear. 

Kai felt like he had been drifting in and out of consciousness for hours, but he had no way of knowing for sure. In fact, he was rather unsure about everything at the moment: his mind seemed fuzzy and hazy; he could scarcely remember how they got there. The more he thought about it, the more confused and disoriented he felt. There was only one thing he knew for sure. 

“Zane?” Kai murmured.

Zane swallowed hard. “Yes?” Kai’s face was deathly pale.

“Love you.”

Zane, frozen with shock, said nothing for a moment, but quickly regained movement when Kai’s eyes slipped closed again. “Kai, wake up,” he said, shaking him, but this time it seemed that Kai really could not. Zane felt on the verge of panic. “Kai, please!” he implored, but Kai could not hear him. 

Just when all hope seemed lost, there came a low rumbling noise from somewhere outside. Zane looked up quickly, eyes and ears on high alert. The rumbling grew nearer and nearer, louder and louder…

Four ninjas busted through the wall of rubble with a bang. 

-

Kai opened his eyes. The room he was in was pure white, and for one horrible moment he thought he had never left that snowy hellscape. But he felt warm, and as he glanced around a bit more, it became clear that he was, in fact, lying in a hospital bed. He smiled. “I lived!” he exclaimed to himself. 

“Kai!” came a chorus of voices, and his friends scrambled up from their various perches to crowd around him, all of their questions and remarks overlapping into one loud blurry of sound. 

“Guys, I’m fine,” he laughed. “But what about the mission? What happened?”

“Oh, we took care of that,” Lloyd said. “Turns out that shrine you guys found was the key to putting those creatures back into hibernation, you just have to touch a _ very _specific pattern of symbols.”

“Yeah, we went to the ruins hoping that you guys would tell us you had found the shrine, but neither of you were anywhere to be seen,” Cole continued.

“We found the staircase, but when we saw the collapsed area we knew something was wrong,” Nya added.

“So we busted through, took care of the shrine, and got you guys out of there!” Jay finished. 

“Huh,” Kai said. “I don’t remember that at all.”

“You were unconscious at that point,” Cole said.

“Oh.”

“But on the bright side, you’re fine now!” Jay said enthusiastically. 

Kai nodded, then glanced around the room. “Hey, where’s Zane? I’m hoping he can fill me in on what else happened before you guys got there. My head still feels weird.”

The other four ninjas exchanged looks. “He’s in the other room,” Nya said finally. “We can send him in if you want.” 

“Yeah, that would be cool.”

“Okay.” She hesitated. “The doctor said he basically saved your life, Kai.”

Kai blinked. Deep in his chest, something fluttered hopefully.

“Okay. See you later, Kai!” Lloyd said, abruptly leading the ninjas from the room.

“Bye, then.” Kai settled back against his pillows, mind running a mile a minute. After a few moments, Zane entered the room and slowly approached Kai’s bed. 

“Hello, Kai.”

“Zane!” Kai said, a little too eagerly. He cleared his throat. “Uh, how are you?”

Zane shook his head. “I am the one who should inquire that of you, Kai. You nearly died.” The look of guilt painted across his face was unmistakable, but there was something else there too, something Kai couldn’t quite identify. 

“Yeah, but you saved my life,” Kai said. “They told me.”

Zane brushed this off. That odd look crossed his face again. “I am the reason your life was threatened in the first place. It was the very least I could do.”

“It wasn’t your fault!” Kai said crossly. Why couldn’t Zane understand that he was a hero? Kai’s hero, at least. “I don’t remember most of what happened, but I remember that part clearly. It was an accident.”

“Yes, but nevertheless… I was careless. I put you in danger.”

Kai shook his head stubbornly. “You saved me.”

Zane frowned. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, and fell back into a gloomy silence. 

“There!” Kai exclaimed, for the strange, unknown feeling had just shown plainly in Zane’s face again.

“What?” Zane asked, confused. 

“You keep making this face, and I don’t know what it means! It’s like sad and mad at the same time, kind of, but also neither of those things? What are you thinking about?” 

Zane opened his mouth; closed it again. Finally, he said, “do you remember what you said to me when we were trapped in that cave?” 

Kai considered, then shook his head slowly. “No. Like I said, I can’t really remember any of that.” _ What did I say to him? _ Kai thought frantically. _ Something stupid and embarrassing, probably. _He grimaced slightly. 

“Kai, you…” Zane took a deep breath. “You said you love me.”

Kai froze. For a split second, every possible explanation he could think of ran through his head. He began babbling frantically. “Zane I’m sorry I don’t know what I was thinking probably just delirious right I can’t believe I said that I’m so sorry I totally didn’t mean it—”

“That’s what I feared,” Zane said, voice strained. 

“What do you mean? I just said I didn’t mean it!” Kai exclaimed, face burning. 

“Precisely!” Zane said, flustered. “I try not to allow my—my feelings affect the missions, but I—well, I knew you could never feel the same way, but being so bluntly reminded that you would only every state such affections towards me while entirely delirious and confused, it—it’s painful.” Zane’s voice dropped off brokenly, and the room fell silent. For several long moments, the two ninjas could only stare at each other, Zane distressed and Kai shell-shocked. 

“You…” Kai stopped, hardly daring to speak the words out loud lest it break the spell. “You have… feelings? For me?” His voice got softer and softer as he spoke, and by the end of his question it was barely above a whisper.

“I… yes. I do,” Zane said. “I understand if you no longer wish to be friends.”

“Zane…”

“I can ask to no longer be paired together on missions, I’m sure Sensei would agree that that is for the best—”

“Zane—”

“I will stay out of your way from now on, I assure you—”

“Zane!”

Zane fell silent, fidgeting nervously and avoiding Kai’s gaze. Kai clenched his fists and took a deep breath. Never, _ ever, _ had he dared utter this out loud before. “Zane, I… I feel the same way.”

Zane looked up quicker than humanly possible. “You… but…” He paused. “You do? Truly?”

Kai nodded, his face a brilliant scarlet. “Yeah. I do.”

Ever-so-slowly, a smile brighter than the sun overtook Zane’s face. Kai felt himself grinning, too, and he held out his hand. Zane took it gently. 

“Thanks for saving my life,” Kai said, and tugged Zane down until they were face to face. “And, uh… for liking me back, or whatever” he added, softer, and lifted his head up to capture Zane’s mouth in a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> sriyani: i hope u enjoyed despite my complete and utter ignorance when it comes to ninjago lore


End file.
